Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Friday, May 24th

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CheeseIsGood, a winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize on both DraftKings and FanDuel, is here to give you his musings on the upcoming MLB DFS slate. Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Cheese has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his MLB DFS picks.

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Happy Friday! We’ve got a good-looking 11-game slate that features plenty to like on both the pitching and hitting sides. However, the weather might throw a huge monkey wrench into things, as two of the top pitchers on the slate are at risk of being lost. The early morning report on our MLB Weather page has BAL/CWS at Orange/Red and the CHC/STL game at Orange. With Corbin Burnes and Shota Imanaga in those two games, the pitching landscape changes dramatically without those games. I’ll include them in the rankings for now, but we will need to keep a close eye on this throughout the day.

Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

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The top tier is completely different depending on what happens with Burnes and Imanaga. I’m also putting Justin Verlander in this tier based on my early assumptions about what his ownership will be. In reality, as we’ll discuss, he’s actually just a second-tier pitcher for me tonight.

TOP-TIER PITCHING

Corbin Burnes at White Sox – 25.6% K, 6.4% BB, 2.56 ERA, 3.23 SIERA
Shota Imanaga at Cardinals – 27.8% K, 4.3% BB, 0.84 ERA, 3.01 SIERA
Zac Gallen vs. Marlins – 26.8% K, 6.8% BB, 3.02 ERA, 3.32 SIERA
Justin Verlander at A’s – 18.7% K, 10.1% BB, 3.97 ERA, 5.12 SIERA

At this point in the day, I don’t see a strong likelihood of being able to justify paying the highest salaries on the slate for two pitchers whose games might not even play. What I’ll say is that if the weather clears up, Corbin Burnes and Shota Imanaga are my top two pitchers. But even as silly-good as Imanaga has been, I don’t think it’s some sort of must-play at $11,000 against a low-strikeout lineup. With Burnes, he would be my SP1 in this matchup, but I’m really just assuming this game is a no-go.

The next thing I want to talk about it is where Justin Verlander would fall in this tier if we had Imanaga and Burnes available.

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About the Author

CheeseIsGood
Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

One of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has won contests at the highest levels of both season-long and DFS. He is a 2x winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize in DFS; having won the 2014 FanDuel baseball Live Final and following that up by taking down a DraftKings Milly Maker Tournament in 2015. In addition, he’s won the Main Event championship in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship and the NFBC Platinum League, which is the highest buy-in entry league. His consistent success in the NFBC tournaments earned him a prestigious spot in their Hall of Fame. Dave can also strum a mean guitar while carrying a tune, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see him do so on one of his MLB Crunch Time appearances. Follow Dave on Twitter – @DavePotts2